interview with one of its leaders Bahram Ali Atai, who had been subjected to detention for a prolonged period without charges.
conditions in Evin prison, a major center for political
On March 15, the printer of the paper, Mohammed Bagher Falsafi, was jailed. On March 26, the newspaper was suppressed. On March 29, Atai was re-
The HKE is one of the three Iran. ian groups that adheres to the Fourth International. The world Trotskyist movement has appealed to all anti-imperialists and supporters of democratic rights to send the following telegram to Hojatolislam Mousavi Trabrizi, the General Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Islamic Court, Tehran, Iran:
"As a supporter of the Iranian revolution and an opponent of the U.S. government's threats against it, I urge you to release the anti-shah, anti-imperialist fighters and supporters of the Iranian revolution, Bahram Ali Atai and Mohammed Bagher Falsafi, who are being held without charges at Evin Prison in Tehran. " A copy should be sent to the newspaper Jomhuriye Eslami in Tehran.
The following are excerpts from Atai's interview published in Kargar that deal concretely with his treatment and that of his fellow prisoners. The introduction is abridged from the one in Kargar.
Freeing Bahram Ali Atai after eighty-two days of illegal detention in Evin Prison is a victory for workers' parties' political rights and the advance of the Islamic revolution of Iran against Saddam's aggression, American imperialism, and Zionism.
WHAT HAPPENS IN EVIN PRISON? Bahram Ali Atai, former worker in the Iranian National factory and member of the political bureau of the Revolutionary Workers Party (Hezbe Kargarane Engelabi-HKE) was freed from prison on Thursday, March 3, 1982. His release is a victory for the political freedoms for workers parties, the strengthening of the organizations of the toilers and the ad14 vancing of the war against Saddam's ag-
Bahram Ali Atai was illegally arrested by officials of the Revolutionary Prosecutor for distributing materials calling for justice for his comrade-in-arms and co-thinker, Brother Mostafa Seifabadi (who had been wounded in the war and is a worker fired from Dopar factory) along the way to the place where services are held during the Friday prayer.
Brother Atai, one of the founders of the Iranian revolutionary socialist movement, has a record of ten years of vigorous struggle against Pahlevi's oppression and American imperialism while he was in exile.
Brother Atai is also one of the former workers at Iran National who, in the first days of Saddam's imposed war, in Anjoman [factory committees], played an important role in organizing the Mobilization and military training of the workers and, along with the rest of the worker volunteers, was sent to the front and served with Martyr Chamran Headquarters in Ahwaz.
Bahram Atai (DR) But after a while, the management of his factory called him back from the front and he was fired for the crime of having socialist ideas and his activities in the military mobilization of the factory. Brother Bahram Ali Atai's release occurred in the context of many leaders of workers' unions in Europe and America as well as defenders of the Iranian revolution all over the world, bearing witness to his record of struggles against Pahlevi's oppres sion and American imperialism. They called on the officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran to free him....
During his 82 days of illegal detention in Evin Prison, Brother Atai had a first-hand view of the conditions of the prisoners, the way officers of the court conducted interrogations, and the prisoners' demands.
In a recent message, the Imam has said that it is necessary for the Supreme Court to look into the activities of the Prosecutor and the prison conditions. In view of this, Bahram Ali Atai's eyewitness account is useful, particularly so considering his record as a fighter against the oppression of the Pahlevis and a fighter in the war against Saddam. Even the Prosecutor has not accused him of carrying out illegal acts against the Islamic republic. So, we consider it necessary to present this testimony in written form to the honorable office of Imam Khomeini; the office of Hojatoleslam Khamenei, the president of the republic; the honorable Supreme Court; and the representatives of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. We also think that all these facts should be made available to militant workers and activists in the movements-the Revolutionary Guards, the Jihad for Construction and the Literacy Campaign, as well as the fighters at the front....
### ARREST
Question. Brother Atai, please tell us about how you were arrested.
Answer: On Friday, December 11, 1981. I and a few other members of the HKE and supporters of Kargar went to where the Tehran Friday prayer is held, to distribute an appeal for justice for Brother Mostafa Seifabadi addressed to Hojatoleslam Rafsanjani. Brother Seifabadi is a worker who had been fired from the Dupar factory. In the first days of the war imposed by Iraq, as a reservist, he went to the front and served for six months. He was wounded. After being treated for his wounds, he returned to the front. When Brother Seifabadi returned to his factory after his term of service expired, the manager of the factory instead of defending him because of his sufferings at the front in the war in defense of the Islamic revolution, fired him along with a few other workers from the factory, like Brother Hamdollah Khodakarami, a worker Moslem and representative of the Islamic factory shora. Our brother was distributing this appeal for justice to the worshippers on their way to participate in the Tehran Friday prayer services. We
tributing this appeal isn't creating a pro- me that no doubt, my crime was "heavy"
distributed thousands of these appeals among the worshippers and were met with a great deal of acceptance.
After distributing the appeals, I was heading towards Revolution Square when two people approached me and asked me to come along with them. I asked them "Where are we going?" They answered, "To the Komiteh's patrol car. I went with these two towards the car and realized that it was the Seventh Precinct Komiteh's patrol car. On the way, they told me that the Headquarters in Charge of Holding the Friday Prayer Services (Setade Bargazariye Maraseme Nemaze Jomeh-SBMNJ) had asked them to detain me. When we got to the Seventh Precinct Komiteh, it was noon, and no one was present. But a young brother was there and he briefly interrogated me and asked me a question about the statement and the organization connected with it. I explained to this brother that I am a member of the HKE and the statement was an appeal for Brother Seifabadi and that a few others were also distributing this appeal at the Friday services, but no one troubled them, and only I had been brought over here.
Anyway, the Komiteh of the Seventh Precinct didn't know what to do with me and said that they had to get in touch with the Central Komiteh to get a suggestion. They got in touch with the Central Komiteh and apparently someone in the Central Komiteh had said that they should bring me there. Since it was Friday and no one was there, they said that I should be brought over on Saturday. We stayed in the Komiteh of the Seventh Precinet until 6:00 p.m. and finally, they gave me permission to go home under my own recognizance, to come back Saturday. It became clear to me that this illegal arrest was not incidental but that it had been planned.
Saturday morning, I presented myself to the Komiteh of the Seventh Precinct and I, along with several others, who were said to have been accused, were brought to the Central Komiteh. In the interrogation section of the Central Komiteh, I talked with Brother Motahhari, with whom I had previously been touch and spoken about the activities of the HKE and Kargar, and who I knew. And I explained about the problem of distributing the appeals for Brother Seifabadi and the fact that those in charge of the SBMNJ and the brothers of the Sixth Operations Staff of the regional Komiteh had long been aware of our activities, like selling Kargar to the worshippers on their way to prayer.But this time, Brother Motahhari's behavior was different from what I'd seen in the past. He told me I was "making a provocation". I asked "What do you mean, provocation? " Brother Motahhari said that distributing leaflets like Seifabadi's appeal was a provocation. Of course, for me it was interesting how a man in charge of the Central Komiteh became more Catholic than the Pope in defense of the illegal firing by an idolatrous manager in the Dupar factory. In reply, I said, "Brother Motahhari, disvocation, but part of the religiously sanctioned and legal activities of the HKE They are activities which necessitate the intensification of the contradiction between the Iranian revolution and imperialism and its agents in Iran." Mr. Motahhari answered that Mr. Bani Sadr created the same provocation, and then turned his head from me and said that we had determined to struggle against the "American line," and in fact, labeled the legal ativities of the HKE and Kargar as the "American line". Of course, this too was interesting: Mr. Motahhari decided to struggle against the "American line", the essence of which is illustrated by support for an illegal firing by a factory manager! Mr. Motahhari concluded his remarks saying that, anyway, we've become tired of your political activities and we want to present you to the Islamic revolutionary prosecutor. They then blindfolded me and kept me in the makeshift interrogation place of the Central Komiteh.
About 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, they took me out of the cell and briefly interrogated me in a room and then, in another room, they took my picture, and finally blindfolded me and, along with a few others, put me in a line. Then, someone who I didn't know put his hand on my shoulder and said to someone else, "Is he one gf the ones to be executed?
The other said, "Yeah." This brought me up short, because they brought me from the Friday prayer to the Central Komiteh, blindfolded me, and now, without even telling me what I'm accused of, consider me one of the people to be executed. In the course of what followed, it became clear to me that such talk and activities were quite common....
Anyway, I and several others rode in a car like a minibus without windows, used to carry people charged with crimes, and left the Central Komiteh. I asked the two accused who were on both sides of me, what their crimes were to get a feel for the situation I was in. They both told me their crimes were "heavy." They told too because I was sitting with two such "heavy" people. Anyway, after driving around for a while, the car went down a steep grade and I figured we were going to Evin Prison.
ENTERING EVIN AND INTERROGATION Q. Brother Atai, when you got to Evin, what happened?
A. They marched us out of the car, wrote down our names, and we were turned over to them. Later, we were brought to the second storey of the building, which I later found out was the Revolutionary Prosecutor's building in Evin Prison. We were seated in a hall. There was a large number of others, about 100150, also sitting in the hall. It was lunchtime, and they were about to give out food. (I could only guess at all this from the voices around us, because we were blindfolded all this time.) They also gave
Executioner at work in Iran (DR) me a little dish of food and, with our eyes blindfolded, they said "Eat." All this time that we were sitting in the hall, there were ear-shattering screams from the rooms on both sides of the hall, loud voices saying things like: "Oh, don't beat me, let me go, I'm telling the truth, telling you everything, don't beat me." Just like that, the sound of loud and ear-shattering screams reached us from the rooms. It was like a lot of people being beaten. I'd never heard anything like it, and I was a little shaken by it all. I didn't know who was being beaten or who was beating. The voices of a few women also came out who, they said, were also blindfolded, and they said, "I can't take it any more, brother, bring me back to prison." Later, when I'd been transferred to my section of prison, I understood that these screams were the screams of women who had been brought out of their section for interrogation to the prosecutor's interrogation building and, since they were upset by the cries of the other prisoners who were being
15
this picture is not a picture of me. The had been arrested on charges of having re beaten, wanted to be returned to their
After a few hours, they brought us, blindfolded, from the hall inside one of the rooms, in which there were some thirty people. Later, I realized that these thirty people were like the other accused, who were either in the prisons or from outside the prisons like me, and taken to the prosecutor's building for interroga-
Anyway, I was in that room for three or four days, blindfolded, and only occasionally did they take us to the bathroom and give us food, and no one asked
Finally, on the fourth day,
Thursday, someone came and called my name. I was glad that some one called me by my name and would no doubt tell me with what I had been charged. He called my name and personal details and said,
"You're going to your section." I asked,
"What do you mean, section? " He said,
"Section of the prison." I asked him with what was I charged and why I hadn't been interrogated? He answered that there were a lot of men there, and the time being, you're going to your sec-
The issue of blindfolding in Evin prison began after the time of the explosions, and imprisoned socialist comrades Faranak Zahrai and Monavvar Shir Ali talked about a practice of trying to create a battlefield atmosphere by blindfolding in Evin. This method had been extended to a bizarre degree.
Thus I was transferred down to Section One of Evin prison, Room Six, and in this section, for the first time, I was able to open my eyes. When I opened my eyes, I saw I was inside a room, the likes of which I'd never seen. the room shocked me a great deal. The room was about six meters by six meters, and there were some seventy people inside. The crowding was so great that it was impossible to budge.
Then were you interrogated in prison, and please tell us about it.
A. About one month of my detention had passed, and I remained in the same room with the rest of the prisoners, When one day, they called my name, blindfolded me, and finally brought me to the prosecutor's building in Evin. It was there that, when I was entering Evin, they took me. Later, I noticed that in the prosecutor's building in Evin, there were many departments of the prosecutor's interrogation. I was in the fifth de-
They made me face the wall, sat me on a chair, and undid my blindfold. They told me not to ever look be-
Then the interrogator told me that Id better tell the truth for each question, or else there is ta'zir, i.e., the whip. I told him " I'm glad you're interrogating me, because I want the truth to come out and to know the charges against
The interrogator showed me a picture on which was attached a printed form, and told me to write my name and personal information on it. I looked at the picture and saw that it wasn't a picture of me. I told the interrogator that interrogator asked: "This isn't your pic-
I said, "No." He said, you lie?" I said "I'm not lying, look here, compare this picture with me and see if it is my picture or not." The interrogator separated the picture from the paper and told me to write my name and personal information on the paper. After
I'd written my name, address, and other personal details on the paper, the interrogator looked at the paper, and asked,
"Why did you change your handwriting?'
The interrogator insisted for a while that I was lying, and then conceded that, yes, it was indeed my hand-
Talking and being in contact with other prisoners showed me that this tactic is practically standard in Evin....
All during the
While I was going through the hall, loud, ear-splitting screams came from the interrogation rooms. I later noticed that these screams came from prisoners being
Ordinarily, when a prisoner enters his section, he heaves a sigh of relief because he is saved from the earand upsetting screams of the the revolutionary prosecutor's building, which come from the and he can be delivered from the evil of blindfolding. Because some people, when they go for interrogation to the prosecutor's building, are there for days, the screams and blindfolding really
I became aware of a duality of behavior in Evin. It was a behavior which, after every threat or whipping, affected a grace and brotherliness, and a helpless person sees that not only is he in prison, but an atmosphere of schizophrenia and into a psychoanalytic question by THE CONDITIONS OF THE Q. Brother Atai, what sort of people were in Evin Prison, and in what circumstances were they?
A. As I said, I was in Section One, There were various kinds of people in my room of about eighty people. There were two skilled workers from the Tehran oil refinery, who were connected with no particular political group, and were arrested only for the refinery's internal problems, and fortunately, one of them was freed from prison the same time as I was.
There was a brother from the Municipal Bus Company named Asghar Kaheh, a maintenance worker in the Narmak borough of the Municipal Bus Company, and a member of the Islamic Shora. Brother Kaheh had been arrested some nine months ago, and in the meantime, his case was being looked into.There were several workers from a textile factory, National Shoe, and Iran National.
Of course, the workers among the roughly eighty people in there were a minority. About half of them in the room lations with or sympathizing with the Or-
(OPM), the other half were charged with sympathizing with or having relations with so-called "leftist' groups like Peykar,
People's Fedayeen (Minority), Razmandegan (the Fighters), People's Fedayeen
(Majority), Tudeh Party, or groups like and "Prophets, " the names of which I never even heard of. There were one or two who were arrested in connec-
An interesting number of people, about fifteen, were doctors, physicians, skilled specialists, final year of the university, who had been arrested, for the most part, for their relations with political groups in the past or for their relations in the last two yea with the student group of the Mojah deen called the Organization of Islam
Students, or the student organization of the Fedayeen, called Vanguard.
ages started at seventeen or eighteen and reached to over forty, but most of their ages were between twenty and thirty.
Most of them were in the room for no apparent reason, that is, either they were being interrogated or their interrogation remained half-finished or they were not being interrogated at all. But about 90 percent of those in the room were people who didn't believe in participating in armed actions. There were also several who were arrested arbitrarily or for no apparent reason. For example, there was a member of the OPM whom officials of the Prosecutor's office were after, and since he got away, the Prosecutor's officials arrested every member of his family, like son, his mother, his and his sister and brother; and brother was in our room, and his sister was still in the women's prison.
As for the supporters of the Fedayeen Majority, who are one of the political groups, they were all arrested and detained for peaceful and legal political activities, like passing out statements or putting up pos
There were even two supporters of the Majority who were among the 25-credit students and were arrested on the first day that they went to the university and brought to Evin Prison. that time, they of course had high hopes of being released as soon as possible.
Shokrollah Paknezhad (a leader of the Democratic National Front), I must add that in the few days I was in the same room as he, I had the opportunity to talk to him for a while. Just when I entered Room Six, several people gathered around me to see what
While talking, I noticed that the features of one of them were very familiar. I asked him, "who are
He said "Paknezhad." All at once, I noticed that, yes, I had...before the revolution, I had seen his face. I said, "Mr. Paknezhad, I participated in activities to free you from prison outside the country during the years of Pahlevi's oppression, how strange it is that now we meet for the first time in here." Anyway,
halls one could see under the blindfolds women and men, their feet swollen or he believed that with the accusations knew people, and I'm ready to give their leveled he would names to the official in charge to review against him in court,
And he said he was this, who were whipped simply to get inwrapped in surely be executed.
dressing, formation to the person carrying out the worried the imperialists had succeeded in defeating this revolution. When I had the interrogation, as long as the prisoners opportunity to explain about the struggle didn't give any information which the to free intellectuals like Mostafa Rahimi brother interrogator was looking for, and Reza Baraheni, he asked me if his until talked.
The screams of they
"Don't hit me," the voice of the inname was also among those who, on the outside, were being defended. I said, as terrogator saying "Talk," and then very far as I knew, no, because even I didn't loud screams.
know of his arrest; and he became very despondent. One day, at dawn, his name was called; and they asked him to come with all his things.
He said goodbye to
"Be brave."
everyone, and said,
The interesting thing to note is that Paknezhad said he had never participated in any armed actions....
GUPOE
Q. Is it possible to say something
00070 about your experiences in Evin in regard to the detainees,
A. The prosecutor levelled twelve door and shouted:
charges against Paknezhad. Six of them concerned the National Democratic
Front, several were about Kurdestan and connections with the Mojahedeen, another one was essentially "deceiving the young generation, and they took him off and shot him.
also an 18 year old youth who secretly helped plant a mine, and he was shot.
Several others from the room were shot before I got there.
handcuffs.
cell-mates told me about it. Generally, shootings occurred between six and eight in the evening, so we knew that when, in the afternoon, they came and said so and so with all your things, everyone knows the first weeks of my imprisonment, once
The handa week, the sound of the executions and
The prisoners never saw.
would be quiet and count the number of shots, and sometimes they would reach two centimeters the wrist.
A. The on fifty, sixty, or even seventy, and these shootings were never reported in the daily papers we got in prison and examined....
(Atai told of beatings of prisoners to extrant information.)
fol 1 in that hall, and when someone alway. as his eyes blindfolded, he doesn't even. 1 good when it is time to eat. So ure on prisoners in the Revolutionary Prosecutor's building is far and away more than that in the rooms in the
Something which upset many prisoners at the Revolutionary Prosecutor's building is the cries of those who are being whipped in interrogation chambers and their screams and cries have a terrible effect on the prisoners. Of course, it is then that the prisoners who are being inusual size.
terrogated at the Prosecutor's are being
Of course, the brothers at the
Prosecutor's building call this whipping very painful.
"ta'zir," but ta'zir is when someone's crime has been established, and the religious judge sentences someone to remy heart.
punishment by whipping.
in the Prosecutor's building, the prisoners are whipped before their charges and which
Of crime are confirmed and they still haven't gone to the court, i.e., when interrogation has just begun and the detainee doesn't know with what he is charged. I limping along...
"Hey! Didn't I tell
Then he gave blow feels very every